- Hello, Magnus! Your 3rd LP "Thin the Herd" was released last year, what's new in the band since the release day? Looking back, what can you say about the album today? - Since the album wasn´t officially released in 2014 we still have some work to do with promotion and gigs. We do have some new things going on but nothing we can make public at the moment. Follow our Facebook page for updates. Without any doubt “Thin The Herd” is the best work we´ve done so far. The songwriting was so much better on this one and once again we found a way to keep it fresh and interesting. We are super proud how it came out and very happy that it has been well received so far.

-While creating the music for this album did you feel any kind of pressure because of the huge success of your previous release? - Of course there was pressure, Crime Syndicate was hard to top. And as we didn't want it to be just a new CS album we had to think way out of the box again. But we figured that we´d give it a try and if the new material was any lesser, we simply wouldn't record it.

- Are your texts still about violence and crimes? Do you think the lyrics are important for your music? During the concerts you can barely understand a word...- Lyrics are very important for us, it makes a statement about what type of band we are and also reflects on the reality of what our society has become. Most of the lyrics have a violent content but Henke had some other topics to cover as well. Our main mission with this albumwas to give it a movie type feel, when you look at the cover, listen to the music and read the lyrics there should be a movie running inside your head. I think we accomplished just that.

- I heard that artwork was done by Chris Pervelis again. Was it his own vision or did he discuss the whole concept with you beforehand? - For the cover we had some ideas in mind. But Chris had free hands to do whatever he wanted and I think the result speaks for itself. Chris shares a mentality with us so more often than not we don´t even have to say anything because it´s already understood.

- As we mentioned Chris from Internal Bleeding, the question will be about Frank Rini's appearance in some songs. How did it happen and what can you say about this cooperation?- We have always been a fan of Franks vocals, when I discovered IBs Voracious Contempt the first thing that struck me was the heaviness, second the vocals. No disrespect to the other vocalists that have come and gone through the years but Franks is in a whole other division. I met Frank at the first Maryland deathfest back in 2003, he was standing by the door and I didn´t recognize him at first because he had hair. But he saw my Voracious Contempt longsleeve and we had a little chat and I gave him the CS album. Then he told me that he was going to join IB onstage for a guest appearance and right then and there I knew I wanted him to record something for us some day. And bang! 10 years later I contacted him and asked if he was game, and hell yeah he was. He was real easy and outgoing to work with, no fuckin around. We gave him quite a few parts to do and he delivered bigtime. A magic moment in SOF history for sure.

- Let's talk about already classical CD "Crime Syndicate", so called "All Stars Album". who's idea was it to invite Ruben Rosas? Did you plan to have him as a guest on the album?
- Henke had contacted Ruben long before th﻿e reco﻿rding of CS as a fan. When we wrote the album we had a part in the song VS that had that Texas style of slam, we knew who was right for the job so Henke just asked him and he said yes. Needless to say it became one of the most talked about songs from that album. Ruben just killed it and I think it was a whole new level of brutality that Sweden had never heard. Aside from a few believers we are still not very popular in Sweden after all these years. ​

- You also had Kevin Talley on drums. How did he joined the recordings?- Me and Henke went to Denmark in 1998 to catch their show at the Killing On Adrenaline tour. Kevin was our age so we hit it off and talked music all day. We said jokingly that it would be cool if he could play drums for us sometime, and he said sure. Then we recorded the demo Blood Serology and our first fullenght Sandstorm with domestic drummers. Right before our European tour in 2001 we had started writing material for CS, we predicted that none of the drummers we knew would pull it off so we just went for it and wrote Kevin. He gladly accepted and from there on we could write better and more complex songs as we knew who would bash the skins. In august 2002 he flew to Sweden and stayed for about a week and a half. We rehearsed maybe 2-3 times and then hit the studio. He´s the nicest and most professional guy you´ll ever meet. He nailed two takes of every song which we could choose from and we had a great time with him. A funny story about that, at the time he was scheduled to record for us he also auditioned for Slayer. He kept making the cuts and Henke was very worried that our deal wouldn't happen. I said don´t worry, he´s too young for them and I was right.

- In Sweden there are not so many bands playing Slamming Brutal Death. How does the local underground metal scene look like nowadays?- It´s very thin as it´s always been. There are some cool bands but they hardly get any recognition here, Sweden is the worst place in the world to be playing “non-old school” death metal. I thought that CS would have an impact at that time but I was dead wrong. I hope that Thin The Herd will be better received.

- Have you heard the "Faces of Deceased" cover by Vomit Remnants? What do you think about it? - Oh yes. When we started spreading that first demo Pain Has A Face in 1997, Vomit Remnants was the first band we ever made contact with. We absolutely loved their music because they were trying to break the pattern as we did in Sweden. Keisuke asked us if it was ok to do a cover of that song andit was a no brainer. Song came out great and we were honored that such a great band wanted to cover one of our tunes. As you probably know Takanori(not from the original lineup) did some guest vocals for us on Thin The Herd so we kind of feel that we have come full circle in our long friendship with them. He did a part in Japanese, first for a non-Japanese death metal band ever?

- Do you already have any plans for the nearest future? - Yes we have. We´re making a re-issue of Crime Syndicate and we also have some touring plans but I can´t go into details about that right now. You´ll have to visit our Facebook page regularly for updates.

- Thanks a lot for the interview, Magnus. Do you have anything to add in conclusion?- Just want to say that if you´re into good death metal, buy our new album Thin The Herd. It´s available at www.soilsoffate.tictail.com. We will also stock up with merch and other goodies so check it from time to time. Thanks a bunch for the interview, it´s thanks to souls like you that we can keep it going. Cheers/Magnus